this is ridiculous. Scalpers are making thousands off the tickets. Stubhub have tics from $994 - 4200. Ebay $5500.

I completely agree that it was necessary to try to distribute the tickets as fairly as possible, and a new method of doing that was attempted.However, as we all know, sometimes the best laid plans... Blah, balh blah, and all the rest of it.

Don't you think it's time to stop flogging the dead horse???

One simple solution. Ditch all the tickets. Cancel them all. Start from scratch. There's 7 months in which to do this, so time is definitely not a constraint...

The first people to get tickets should the artists / organisers / contributors. Everybody knows who these people are, surely it's not too difficult to compile a list of them?

Offer a delayed refund (to the original purchaser) for any of the original tickets that were sold, and hey presto, BM has a list of the scalpers! (obviously those who originally bought tickets but don't avail of the refund)

Then the remaining tickets should be reissued - one ticket to one person. Tag that ticket to the purchasers identification and, unless they go through the STEP process, if the party-goer doesn't have the right ID on the door, they don't get in. Period.

It's the only fair way to do it because if you're gona sell 4 tickets per person, obviously a considerable amount will be sold on for profit - as they currently are. And if somebody doesn't get a ticket, well they can only blame themselves for not making themselves available when the tickets went on sale.

Also, all the idiots that bought tickets from the scalpers will feel the sting in the tail and maybe they won't do it again!

Yes, you are missing a few things.If you have read many threads in this sub-forum, you might have learned that the LLC can't just accept money for tickets from people and then take it back. They've entered into a contract, and would bring even more chaos on their heads if they went back on it.

And if you have read those self-same threads, you'd have heard that there are solid reasons to think that it's not scalpers. Those ideas remain controversial.

We all dream of being Alexander the Great cutting to Gordian Knot, but usually there are no simple answers to complicated questions. If there were, they would have been implemented.

The Lady with a Lamprey

"The powerful are exploiting people, art and ideas, and this leads to us plebes debating how to best ration ice.Man, no wonder they always win....." Lonesomebri

Like Trilo said its not an option to simply dump the tix, Great amounts of money, time and energy has been expended to get just to this point in 2012. To toss it out now would be very counterproductive and cause a cyber riot - probably a real one too.

Gee first come first served worked very well for many years.And dont give me this shit about last year ticket sales.All the camps who wanted to go got tickets last year.Not this time so you say to not to buy from scalpers and not pay above face value.So whats my options 1. wait and hope I can find a ticket at face value slim to no chance 2 not go because all the ticket for sale are above face value.BM.org fucks this up and I get to pay the price.I guess this is a shit sandwich and we all get to take a bite except BM.org.They are farting through silk.

An unintelligible passionate yearning drove them out into the desert T.E. Lawrence

@socks - the easiest route for Burning Man would have been to sell tickets as they did last year (though crack the whip as necessary so the ticket vendor had more capacity). They'd have gotten all the revenue from ticket sales in January, and the event would have sold out in under an hour. You and most others would still be ticketless, and there would have been a massive chunk of the supply in the hands of professional scalpers (as you see with every other 'hot ticket' event that sells tickets via first come, first served), and there would have been nothing left to repurpose for a directed ticket distribution program.

some people feel like first come first served is more fair......cuz they likely imagine themselves waiting at 11:59:59 ready to click REFRESH and somehow magically getting a ticket because of that.. they feel somewhat in control..

this process takes the control away from them..(so people feel)

surely its been noticed the anticipation to find out ways for people to feel in control of their chances in STEP.. with folks wondering if when they got an email would determine if they get in line faster..(doesnt appear to be so)... and in the past adding multiple entries into the lottery.. etc..

some ppls want to feel in control of their destiny!! even if they arent.... even it means scalpers and speculators fucking them over... at least they felt like the chance of them getting a ticket was up to them.. and not...... random selections or chance...

You could trip harder on getting STEP tickets! I for one am upset that my computer in SF pings bm.com quicker than mine here in Reno. If it wasn't bad enough that I didn't get picked in the lottery some family members of mine decided to elope the weekend STEP rolls out! Now I'm stuck in Reno with a ping time of 65ms when it should be 18ms!!!

Now I'm going to be like 18,491st in line just like 2010. At least then I still got first tier.

Even if I get tickets I still don't know if I'm going. If the camp isn't going to be there I might as well as re-STEP and pass those tickets on.

I'll tell you this though. Going or not I'm still shopping for scaffolding. I still got my eyes on those JBL dual 15''' cabinets. I'm still going to let those who crashed at my place (your salad was amazing!) crash again on their way back to Black Rock City.

Do I have faith that the org is going to make the best decisions moving forward? Not really. Do I believe they are working their hardest to bring to life the greatest city on the planet? Most definitely.

[quote="theCryptofishist"] "the LLC can't just accept money for tickets from people and then take it back. They've entered into a contract, and would bring even more chaos on their heads if they went back on it."

Ok, so there may be a contract between the LLC and the purchaser of the tickets.So, may it be a possibility that the contract is upheld if the purchaser's individual ticket is guaranteed by the LLC, but any additional tickets that purchaser bought are refunded?

Either way, I definitely reckon one ticket per person.. 4 per person is only asking for the system to be abused.

lemur wrote:some people feel like first come first served is more fair......cuz they likely imagine themselves waiting at 11:59:59 ready to click REFRESH and somehow magically getting a ticket because of that.. they feel somewhat in control..

this process takes the control away from them..(so people feel)

surely its been noticed the anticipation to find out ways for people to feel in control of their chances in STEP.. with folks wondering if when they got an email would determine if they get in line faster..(doesnt appear to be so)... and in the past adding multiple entries into the lottery.. etc..

some ppls want to feel in control of their destiny!! even if they arent.... even it means scalpers and speculators fucking them over... at least they felt like the chance of them getting a ticket was up to them.. and not...... random selections or chance...

Oh it was better for me last year, because I was able to get in at spot 632 or something and retrieve my spot back after the server crashed. However, despite my success that year, I don't think it's better. The game has changed. There's more demand this year and will be in future years, and you can only really ensure fairness is to leave things up to probability like casinos do. I also don't relish dealing with the presence of automated ticket buying systems (think auction snipers).

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens